My #MeToo Story

Trigger warning. Trigger warning. Trigger warning! If you are triggered by talk of rape, sexual abuse, underage drinking, underage smoking, mentions of drug use, allusions of parental abuse, victim blaming, vulgar language, etc. then do not read this story. This is your warning.

So this happened eight years ago. I was twelve years old, almost done with middle school. My parents were in the beginning of a messy divorce. My mother was dating a guy, someone half her age. We'll call him "J." She tried keeping J a secret, but my dad caught on pretty quickly. Once my dad had caught on, my mom started leaving for a week or two at a time, staying at J's place. My older sister was graduated and had left to join the navy right out of high school. She was stationed on the other side of the country, so the divorce didn't affect her as much as it did my younger sister and I. We weren't too close to our dad. He'd always been a heavy drinker when we were kids, and an angry drinker, too. A lot of my memories of him as a kid aren't so good.

Anyway, my mom would leave a lot, but despite this we were closer to her than we were our dad. Eventually, she started to invite us to come with her on the weekends, to stay with her and J. My dad would drive us halfway, a twenty minute drive, and meet my mom at a truck stop, and she would drive us to her and J's place. She didn't want my dad to know where they lived.

They rented a small house in Hokah, Minnesota. It was a cute house, with an unfinished basement, two bedrooms, and a separated garage. My sister and I really enjoyed our time in Hokah. J owned a boat, and he would take us tubing and swimming on the Mississippi river. They also owned two dogs and two cats, which was exciting for us because we hadn't had a pet for a few years.

My mom bought a pool table and they put it in the dining room. J started teaching me how to play pool. He would help me hold my stick. He would get into my space, arms coming around me to put them on the pool stick just so. I maybe thought it was a little weird at first, but I was an open, friendly child, and J was a very personable, charismatic, adult. My little sister would jokingly call him "dad" when in reality he was only a couple years older than my older sister.

I started getting better at pool. So J and I would go one on one when my mom was in the kitchen and couldn't play, or when she was at work. He started trying to show me how to make different types of shots. I was short for my age, and I'd have to practically climb up the side of the pool table to make some of the shots he'd challenge me to make. He'd laugh and "help" by pushing on my back to bend me over the table or grabbing my butt. Somehow, I didn't think anything of it other than it being innocent fun. J never made me uncomfortable. Not at first.

When the divorce was in full effect, my mom started drinking and partying a lot. She claimed it was her "getting her life back." She had had her first kid at 19, married by 21. I can kind of see how she thought she didn't get to have much of a life. So she and J would drink a lot while my sister and I visited them. It wasn't too long before each of us had had our first drink, either.

Jack and coke was a favorite of J's. He'd make them really strong at first, and let me help him drink them down some so he could add more coke later. My sister and I thought it was fun: the partying, playing pool, drinking. Every time we would go back home to our dad's house, my mom would ask us only to tell him how much fun we had on the boat or playing pool, never about Jack or Malibu or Captain Morgan.

The night It happened wasn't much different than any other night spent in Hokah. J gave my little sister her first taste of moonshine. She ended up turning in early. I, on the other hand, was drinking heavily. I had 3 or 4 tall glasses of Jack and coke made by J. We shot pool throughout the night, played loud music, and danced. J made a comment to my mom about how she could "learn a few tricks" from me, and my mom just giggled her stupid, fake, vapid laugh, and smacked him on the shoulder, saying, "What? You want me to dance like that?"

There are parts of the night I don't really remember.

But I remember J and I going outside so he could smoke. He gave me my first cigarette. I smoked it and then threw up the meatloaf my mom had made for dinner. He laughed at me and pulled me inside so I could brush my teeth. He gave me an ibuprofen and another drink. This time it was a Budlight Lime-a-rita wine cooler. We sat down on the couch and started watching Supernatural. I started nodding off, and J pulled me against his shoulder. I remember feeling like I had had a good time, despite being sick.

I think I fell asleep, or spaced out. The next thing I remember, my mom was in the living room, trying to pull J off the couch. She was cooing at him, baby-talking him, trying to get him to come to bed with her. J was angry, telling her to get off of him, leave him alone. I pretended to still be asleep. I hated confrontation and arguments.

Eventually, my mom gave up with a huff and said, "Well I guess pretty soon you'll be fucking her too?!" And she stormed off. This is the first time I learned that J had been sleeping with other people besides my mom. J kind of laughed as she slammed the door, and caught me looking at him. He smiled and asked how I was feeling. I said, "Okay." His arm was around me, and we were really close on the couch.

I was wearing a black tank top and black Deadpool pajama pants. He was in a t-shirt and some boxers.

I started to get up, thinking I should probably sleep on the floor or try and make it up the stairs to where my sister was sleeping. J didn't let me get up.

My mind sort of went blank a little after that. He was kissing me on my face, and on my neck, and it tickled but I wasn't laughing. I pushed his face away from me and told him to stop. He just came back in again, kissing my jaw and smiling against my neck. His hands were on my stomach, and I felt really uncomfortable. I started getting up again but ended up in his lap, straddling him, with his hands up my shirt. He was a lot taller than me, and a lot stronger. He could push and pull me around all he liked.

The living room was dark, but the streetlight was bright outside. His hands ended up inside my sweaty bra. I don't know how he could have found that attractive, but before I knew it, he was rubbing against me.

I think I blacked out a few times during this "foreplay" but I remember grabbing his shoulders and looking him in the eye and saying, "J, I don't want to do this."

He said, "It'll be okay. I'll make it feel really good for you. It's your first time, right?"

I just said, "Yes, but I don't want to do this." My tongue felt heavy and leaden, and all the sweat on my skin made me cold. I was shivering, and kept staring over his shoulder out that window. I just kept staring at the streetlight.

He started rubbing his hands up and down my sides, still thrusting his lower body on me. I felt his dick rubbing on me through our clothes. He said, "You had your first drink a couple months ago, your first cigarette tonight. You'll be an adult in a few years, and look at all the experience you have already! This is just one more thing you'll have a first of tonight." I started to say something else, but he was kissing me harder, this time on the mouth.

And just as quickly as he started that, he was pushing me over to the end of the couch, and I was scared. My heart was beating so loud I couldn't tell if he was saying anything to me. It was hard to breathe, and he was messing with his boxers. I turned to stand up, but tripped onto the coffee table, landing softly on my stomach, because he'd caught me by the arms. I started feeling sick again, and I felt J laugh and say, "This is better." He pulled my pants down, his chest and stomach pinning me down, a hand was pressed onto my mouth, and I try hard to forget about the rest.

When he was done, he fixed my pants and led me outside to have a cigarette with him. It was easier to breathe outside, despite it being with him. I sat on a camping chair opposite him and looked at the sky, blowing smoke in the wind. He acted like what we did didn't even happen. He started asking if I wanted to go out on the river the next day, how was I looking forward to school on Monday, etc.

It took me a long time to realize that what happened that night was not in any way my fault. I was a child. I was 12 years old, put into a situation I had no place being in. It doesn't matter how I dressed, how I danced, or the fact I was drinking, that still should not have happened. No child should be drinking at that age, regardless, but if a anyone is drinking and is raped, it's not their fault.

I didn't say anything about it for a long time. My mom and dad divorced, my dad leaving to move in with his now-wife. My mom and J split up. J ended up developing a serious alcohol problem. He cheated on my mom with another woman, got her pregnant, and my mom confronted him when they were both drunk. He ended up punching a window in a fit of anger, putting his arm through the window, and severing the vein in the crook of his elbow. He went to the hospital and stayed for several days, and my mom moved out of his place, and back into the old house with my sister and I.

All the boyfriends my mom had after J, I was weary of. I don't feel bad about not wanting to get to know a lot of them because most didn't stick around too long.

When I turned 14 and was just about to start high school, my mom brought home her new boyfriend, E. We had dinner with E, and it didn't go unnoticed that he drank a lot and wouldn't make a lot of eye contact with my sister or I. He hardly looked at us at all.

After E left, my mom sat my sister and I down, and told us E has a record. He's on the sex offender registry because he raped a girl (an adult) and was incarcerated for 5 years and was currently serving on probation. She told us she really liked him, despite his history, and wanted us to give him a chance.

We, of course, were immediately uncomfortable with it, but we decided to give him a chance.

E was a heavier drinker than J had ever been. He drunk for the first few months we knew him. Every time he came over or we went to his house, he was drunk.

One day, E told me to take the keys at a gas station, so I could drive us home. I took the keys and began to drive us back to his house. He put his hand on my leg, and I froze up. He rubbed my leg from my knee, to a little too close to my crotch. I pulled the car over and burst out crying. He freaked out and called my mom. I told my mom I would talk to her when we got home. E drove us the rest of the way home.

When we got to his house, I told my mom about E putting his hand on my leg and it reminding me of something. She started yelling at me, "I can't believe you would make up such a story! You just don't want me to be happy! You hate me!"

E apologized for what he did. He said he'd been drinking more than he should. He hadn't realized where his hand was exactly. He just wanted to tell me what a good job I was doing driving. He can't believe he did that. He's so sorry. I'm a child, and he would never even think of doing something untoward to me. Blah blah blah.

I hugged him and told him it was okay. Then I said, "If you do it again, or if you do it to my sister, I will call your parole officer and you'll go back to prison."

He nodded and looked me in the eye, saying, "If I ever touched you inappropriately, or your sister, I would hand you the phone to call my parole officer. I would never do that to either of you girls."

Years on down the line, my mom and E are married, and I'm with my dad and his wife, her kids, and my younger sister, and we are all visiting family in Kansas.

My uncle Steve is a wonderful man. He has a good sense of humor, real laid back kind of attitude, always looking to help people out, and tells me he thinks of me as one of his daughters.

I'm 18, sitting in his garage with him and my aunt Beth, and we are talking about all the crazy things we did as kids, or crazy things we saw. My uncle looks at me and asks, "How old were you and your sister the first time you smoked pot?" I told him and he and my aunt tell me. "How old were you the first time you had a drink? a cigarette?"

Then, "How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

I looked at them, and said, "You guys first."

My aunt Beth lost her virginity at 16 with her boyfriend of a year. My uncle Steve lost his at 13 with a 14 year old girl from church at a party.

I said, "Well I was 12, I think."

And my uncle Steve goes, "Well, I don't mean this in a bad way or anything but twelve? How old was he?" (I have a late birthday).

And I shrugged. I think they could tell I was working up to telling them something because weren't saying much and they weren't clambering to put a new song on the stereo.

"My mom had a boyfriend, named J. He was 23 years old. I was really drunk, and stuff happened. It wasn't great. But I know what happened was wrong, and I'm okay."

And my uncle Steve hugged me and cried a little, and my aunt Beth squeezed my hands from across the table, and we continued to play our music and drink and smoke.

I really am okay, for the most part. Sometimes I'm not, and I'm learning that that's okay too.